44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 11:27:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise this morning to speak to the opposition motion before us.
I think everyone in the House would agree that one of the most important responsibilities of the government, which some would say is a sacred responsibility, is stewarding public funds and ensuring that every single dollar is spent in the best interests of Canadians, that the government gets maximum value and that public contracts do not excessively line the pockets of private companies. That is why the motion calling for the Auditor General to conduct an audit of all aspects of the ArriveCAN app is so important and why Canadians should rightly be concerned.
There are a lot of different aspects we could talk about. We could talk about the fact that this app erroneously sent over 10,000 Canadians into quarantine and put them in jeopardy of $750,000 fines, or we could talk about the delays ArriveCAN caused at the border, something that was of great concern both to travellers and border officials. It made people struggle, especially people who did not have access to the technology. However, the focus of today's motion, and appropriately so, is on the decisions the government made around procurement to spend millions of dollars on private IT companies to develop and maintain this app.
The biggest concern is the lack of transparency around the cost of development and maintenance, and there are a number of things we know. First of all, we know the original estimate for developing the app was $80,000, and we know that somehow development and maintenance ballooned to $54 million. We also know the government paid an IT staffing firm here in Ottawa nine million of those dollars. This is a firm that has no office, has only a handful of staff and did not actually do the work, but rather assembled a team of contractors and took a 15% to 30% commission. They were making millions of dollars off this.
Finally, we know that when CBSA was asked to produce a list of all the contractors involved in the development and maintenance of the ArriveCAN app, there were a bunch of errors in that list. The original list included companies that had nothing to do with the ArriveCAN app, and when they saw their names on the list, they had some pretty serious questions for the government. A company called ThinkOn Incorporated and Ernst & Young were among the companies that had nothing to do with it and were quite confused by the fact they were being implicated. I appreciate that CBSA has promised to provide a full list and get to the bottom of these irregularities, but there are enough questions here that this motion to have the Auditor General conduct a full audit is very much warranted.
I also want to talk a bit about the broader questions this issue has brought up. There is a real question here about whether the government's overall approach to outsourcing is delivering good value for Canadians or whether it is simply lining the pockets of companies that have figured out how to maximize their returns from the system of government procurement.
We have heard concerns expressed by some of the public sector unions. They have shared with us that they believe IT companies are intentionally underbidding on government contracts. When they underbid on government contracts, it makes it very difficult for the government to assess whether it is in fact better value to outsource the contract to the private sector or whether better value is had by keeping that work in house with the government's own team of IT professionals. What happens after these companies underbid on the contracts is that the contracts start and they are able to have the contracts reopened.
While I am pausing, I note that I will be sharing my time with the wonderful member for Courtenay—Alberni, something I have been reminded of by my colleagues several times yet somehow have forgotten.
The reopening of these contracts then allows the government, on a discretionary basis, to jack up the value of those contracts again and again so that the total value at the end, when everything is said and done and all the dollars are added up, is many times higher than the original estimate for the work. This is something we need to get to the bottom of, and I think that is an opportunity the motion presents.
Here is the trend when it comes to government outsourcing. The Globe and Mail reported in January that the government outsourced $11.8 billion of work in the 2020-21 fiscal year. That is up 42% from 2015-16. It is a pretty alarming increase. In 2020-21, the federal government spent $2.3 billion on IT contracts, compared with only $1.9 billion on its own government IT workforce. One public sector union has filed 2,500 grievances related to outsourcing.
There is something wrong with this picture. We need to ensure this decision, which some people call the “make or buy” decision, is informed by the best information and that it is always done with the public's best interests in mind. Getting good value for taxpayers' dollars for the public resources that our government is charged with stewarding is the primary and only concern of that process.
I want to mention that, thankfully, the government operations committee is working on this larger topic right now, and I want to point out the good work of my colleague, the member for Courtenay—Alberni. It is looking at this broader question of whether the Treasury Board's guidelines, which are supposed to inform this make or buy decision, are doing a good enough job, are doing what they are tasked with doing and are ensuring that the public interest is protected.
Finally, I want to turn to one of the things I heard in the House yesterday, which I think is one of the unfortunate aspects of this debate over the ArriveCAN app. There is a common trope around IT work that I believe is neither accurate nor particularly helpful. Yesterday, we heard a Conservative member rise in the House and claim that ArriveCAN “could have been created by a bunch of pimply faced teenage hackers over a weekend using a Commodore 64.”
I hear my colleagues laughing. I agree that the quote is humorous, but it is an unhelpful stereotype and I will tell colleagues why. I used to work in IT as a website developer, and I came across the stereotype that we should not pay good money for IT work and for tech products. After all, these are things that our brother's cousin's nephew can do at home for fun. These are sophisticated technology products that are being developed, and IT workers in our country are among the most creative, the most sophisticated, the most sought-after and the most valuable assets we have. When we allow these tropes and stereotypes about IT work to persist, I think we really do them an injustice and potentially risk the future of the new economy that is so important in our country.
In conclusion, Canadians deserve to know that their taxpayer dollars are being managed responsibly. The irregularities around the ArriveCAN app raise serious questions and we need to get to the bottom of them. There is a larger question of whether the government's approach to outsourcing delivers value or whether it simply enriches its private sector friends. I hope through this debate and through the investigations and audits that follow we can get answers to those questions.
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- Nov/1/22 11:36:55 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, to the member's earlier point, I do not think any scenario really justifies shovelling money off the back of the government truck willy-nilly without the accountability that Canadians expect. We have seen in the past very worrisome and concerning instances where that has occurred, such as the WE Charity scandal and the Phoenix pay system, where we are hiring consultants who are hiring other consultants and the whole thing becomes a total debacle.
As to the role of committees, absolutely committees can help us get to the bottom of this. I think the work that OGGO is doing is very much complementary to what this opposition day motion calls for, and I look forward to the outcome from both.
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- Nov/1/22 11:38:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's question is one that we have been dealing with at the transport committee, and it is an important one.
Not many people can argue that technology in the travel sector has not made our travel sector more efficient and more productive. I think that we will see that role of technology increase in the future; I believe it is inevitable.
I would say two things. First, we need to ensure that we keep accessibility in mind and that people who do not have access to technology have accommodations that work for them. The second is that we need to be consulting closely with the people who are currently performing the roles that technology is meant to complement or replace, ensuring that we understand the role they are playing in our travel sector and that we are supporting them in their work.
If those two things are done, technology applications can have a place in our travel sector, and we certainly heard that from different parties, whether it be airports or others.
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- Nov/1/22 11:39:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wish I knew the answer to that. I am hoping that is one of the things the Auditor General will help us get to the bottom of, and I am very interested in what those findings might be.
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- Nov/1/22 11:40:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that question really gets to the heart of it, because public trust is the essential ingredient in the governance of our country. If the government does not have the public's trust, it cannot perform its important role. When there are questions around transparency, when the public starts to feel the government is wasting public money, it erodes public trust at a time when we cannot afford that.
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- Nov/1/22 3:47:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been a bunch of very concerning irregularities around the ArriveCAN app. I think most Canadians were pretty shocked at the overall dollar amount for development and maintenance, which was $54 million. When the CBSA produced a list of contractors involved, there were companies on there that claimed they did not do any work on the app and were quite surprised.
To my friend across the way, do these irregularities, in his mind, not warrant an audit to get to the bottom of how much money this cost, who got the money, what the procurement process looked like and whether it was appropriate? Does he not agree that is appropriate?
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- Nov/1/22 4:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this whole ArriveCAN debacle has raised the issue of decisions about whether to outsource contracts to the private sector or have Canada's public service do the work itself, and there are some really strong concerns about the way in which that part of the procurement process is happening.
Does the member agree that there needs to be a much larger view of this problem, and does he support the work we are trying to do to get to the bottom of that process?
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Mr. Speaker, it is such a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill S-227, a private member's bill to establish food day in Canada. I cannot think of another topic that brings us all together in the House and across the country more than the idea of food, particularly at this time of the evening, perhaps.
Reading through the bill, it is very simple, but it speaks, first of all, to the people who produce our food and to the farmers in our communities whose labour results in the foods we enjoy.
Thinking about that and about northwest B.C., this incredible region that I am so honoured to represent in this place, brings to mind for me the conversations and visits I have had with food producers over the past months and years, people like Lindsay and Janik at Robin Creek Dairy in the Bulkley Valley. They are a second-generation dairy-farming family, and they are finding a way to make that work for their family.
One of the things I noted at their farm was a robot in their barn that cleaned up cow manure. This is a quite a spectacular bit of technology. One would have to see it to believe it.
It is not just them, but also Daybreak Farms in Terrace. Kieran and her mom have taken over the operation of an egg farm that has been in that community for a long time. They have a plan for the modernization of their farm. It is important food security for a region that has only one commercial-scale egg producer. They produce about a million eggs per year, and they have a plan to expand that significantly.
I think of Ken Shaw. Ken is a college professor in Prince Rupert who also has an urban farm called Rainbow End Farm. Prince Rupert is a tough place for agriculture, but he is making it work in a corner of the city up against the rail tracks, growing vegetables and donating over a thousand dollars of produce a year to the local food bank.
I think of Farmer Cam. I cannot remember his last name, because everyone simply knows him as Farmer Cam. Farmer Cam's Foods is his little farming operation, growing vegetables on the bank of the Skeena River, just outside of Terrace.
All these people are part of the vibrant local foods sector in the northwest of British Columbia: so many growers, so many farms and so many people who are pouring their heart and their energy into this act of growing the food we all enjoy.
I also think of the people who transform these foods, these products, into incredible meals. I think of Dai Fukasaku in Prince Rupert, a chef I got to see the other day. Dai has created a renowned menu with local seafood caught in the waters just off Prince Rupert, some incredible meals that he is preparing and that are really putting his restaurant on the map.
I think of Chef Giulio, over in Daajing Giids, on Haida Gwaii. Chef Giulio, with his restaurant Gather, is combining his knowledge of traditional Italian cuisine with the wild foods and unique tastes of Haida Gwaii.
Finally, I think of Meg Roberts at Rustica Woodfired Bakery, just outside of Smithers, whose handcrafted sourdough and other baked products are looked forward to by everyone in that community. Meg has done an incredible job of not only providing her amazing baking but also fundraising for local initiatives, like the Cycle 16 bicycle trail between Telkwa and Smithers.
I think of all these people.
Looking at the bill and reading through it, it also speaks to this idea of farm to table. In northwest B.C., local food is about more than farm to table. It is about forest to table. It is about sea to table. It is about river to table.
What this bill brought to mind for me are some of the truly unique foods of the northwest, tastes that are found in few other places around the world. Our leader, the member for Burnaby South, was in Skeena—Bulkley Valley just two days ago. We had the opportunity to attend a traditional Wet'suwet'en bat'lats in Burns Lake, 400 people who came together to honour family members who passed a year ago.
At that feast, one of the foods that was served was niwus. Niwus is made from the soapberry, a tiny berry that grows in northern B.C. The Wet’suwet’en whip these berries with their hands and it froths up. It is hard to describe the texture of this food. It has an amazing taste. It is quite bitter. I am not sure if the member for Burnaby South will be eating much more of it in the future, but one never knows. This is one of the foods that is so special and comes from the region that I call home.
I am also reminded of some of the other wild foods I had a chance to eat, such as smoked sea lion or tibin, which is harvested by the Nisga'a people. It is a really unique food. I am thinking of Nicole Morven, who provided me a jar of canned tibin this past year, which I had a chance to enjoy. There is also eulachon or candlefish, these oily fish that are so special to the Nisga'a, the Tsimshian and the Haisla.
About a year ago, in February, I had an opportunity to get out on the Nass River with Gerry Robinson, Mansel and Curtis. We were sitting in the middle of the river in this little boat under a crystal-clear blue sky waiting for these tiny fish to fill a long net they had put out. It was a special experience. Of course, the eulachon are rendered down for their oil, their grease, which is such a valuable commodity among first nations in the northwest and up and down the B.C. coast.
I could go on and on to talk about sea urchin or spawn on kelp. The Tahlton elders have what I think might be one of the most unique delicacies in northern British Columbia, which is the part of the moose called bum guts. That is exactly what it sounds like. It is quite an interesting delicacy that I challenge members in this place to try it the next time they are in Tahlton country.
Talking about these foods that are so important to indigenous nations in northwest B.C., the idea that comes to mind, which I hear raised so many times by my neighbours, is one of indigenous food sovereignty, the idea that indigenous people should have the tools and the agency to protect, manage and harvest the foods that they rely on. This is a concept that is embedded in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Article 20 speaks to the right “to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of subsistence”.
On the topic of food sovereignty, I think of Jacob and Jessica on Tea Creek Farm in Kitwanga. This operation is doing such important work, not only growing local food but training local indigenous people in many of the skills around food production. In their first year of full-scale operation, they have trained over 84 local indigenous people and have been awarded for their work. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization named them 2022's Canada food heroes. They also won a Land Award from the Real Estate Foundation this past year.
These are all very important things to talk about with regard to local food and the things behind Canada food day. I must say that I have often been skeptical of bills that proclaim special days. I know many of them have been brought forward in this place and they have certainly raised very important issues, but when we talk about indigenous food sovereignty and local food production and when I listen to the messages that I am hearing from local food producers and indigenous leaders, I believe what they want more than anything for us to be doing in this place is passing bills that create real change for them, that support local food production with investments in infrastructure, and that support indigenous food sovereignty with legal changes that give indigenous nations more control over the resources and foods they require.
Should this bill pass, I hope that at least one day per year, and we need much more than that, we will have a chance to move forward those important initiatives.
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